Skip to main content

The man with HIV who says he had sex with 104 women and girls - BBC NEWS


Eric Aniva was arrested in July on presidential orders after he admitted having unprotected sex with girls as young as 12 - and keeping quiet about his HIV-positive status. Aniva says he was hired by the girls' relatives to take part in a sexual initiation ceremony which they believe "shakes off" the girl's childhood "dust" so that she can enter adulthood. When Malawi's president, Peter Mutharika, ordered the arrest, he wanted Aniva tried for defiling young girls, but no girls came forward to testify against him.
So instead Aniva is being tried for another ritual defined as a "harmful cultural practice" under section five of Malawi's Gender Equality Act, in which he had sex with newly bereaved widows. On this charge, two women have come forward to give evidence against Aniva, though one says he had sex with her before the practice was banned, and the other says she managed to escape before the sexual act took place. "Widow cleansing is a highly regarded practice among us," said a social worker from Nsanje, the remote south-western district where Aniva lives.
"We believe that if a widow or widower is not sexually cleansed, then bad luck, sudden death or illness will come to some, or all, of the clan. We are obliged to do this custom by our ancestors," he added. He asked to remain anonymous, because government employees are not allowed to talk to the media without permission. Until a few years ago, it was common practice in the district for a bereaved widow to have sex with a man three times a night for three to four nights. Often the man would be the deceased's brother, but in some cases someone from outside the immediate family, such as Aniva, would be hired to perform the act. If the bereaved was a man, a woman would be found to have sex with him.
The ritual was modified, however, in the light of the HIV epidemic, and these days a married couple are supposed to act as surrogates, having sex on behalf of the bereaved. As before, they utter an oath at the point of ejaculation to prevent ill fortune arising from the death.
What horrifies Malawians about Aniva, who claimed in his BBC interview to have had sex with 104 women and girls, is that he did not stop his sexual practices after finding out he was HIV-positive.
"HIV is a killer. How can someone with this status, do what he did? I think this man is the devil. Greedy and selfish. If I could judge him, I would give him a murder sentence and life imprisonment," a pastor, Paul Mzimu, said outside Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, where HIV rates on some wards reach 70%.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

25 FACTS ABOUT OBAMA

By   KelseyWarner   on March 4, 2016 Inside Gov As the final remaining year of the Obama administration is well underway, the legacy that President   Barack Obama   will forge in history remains hotly contested.   Conservatives argue   Obama is the “worst president ever” while   liberals have claimed   he has “done more good for this country than any president before him.” He likely will not play the role of a “lame-duck” president, as the administration has yet to slow down. Obama currently finds himself in the middle of a   heated standoff   with the Republican-led Senate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. He still pursues a workable   plan to close GuantanamoBay , one of his 2008 campaign promises. As his term nears its end, the passionate, vocal opinions on both sides of the political aisle may reach their crescendo as his legacy becomes ripe for interpretation. When reflecting on Obama’s time in the White House, the f...
Post a Comment
Read more

BREXIT

An interview with Rev Victor Atokolo SO WHAT IS BREXIT? BREXIT, the term was coined during the movement towards referendum, the last referendum in England were the votes decided that Britain should exit the European Union. So the term actually means “Britain Exit”, they just coined it, came up from those who wanted Britain to exit the European Union. DOES BREXIT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ENDTIME? A lot to do, now we have seen the movement towards the one world government, consequently the one world religion and the full revelation of the antichrist, but we understand that that fullness cannot manifest until the church is taken away at the rapture, but the speed the quickens it in moving is that if the European Union remains intact, Turkey joins them as they are proposing and then the present move of the Democrats in America succeeds, we’re likely to have one world government in a short time and that would have intensified the persecution of Christians and Jews and...
Post a Comment
Read more

7 FACTS ABOUT PRIDE

I want to talk about the issue of pride as regards to us as individuals. Pride is something we exhibit in our day to day lives, but nobody would agree that he or she is proud. But I would want us to know that at certain times in our lives we have shown pride.  Pride goes in two ways, you may either attribute it as a mark of honour to someone you love or yourself. For example "When a husband is proud of his wife, or a father is proud of his son who graduated with a first class honours" and many other examples I can cite. People can also be proud of themselves to boost their self confidence. For example: someone can be proud of been single, or someone can be proud of been fat just to knock off negative views and opinions of people towards those that are fat. The other way is when the person is full of himself/herself, super imposes, boozy, dominarian, arrogant, boostful. rebellious, egocentric and full of self justification. This is where the problem lies about p...
Post a Comment
Read more